Governor Josh Shapiro appointed PA Food Policy Council Director Dawn Plummer in February 2023. Prior to then, she served as executive director of the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council for more than eight years. In that time, she built a strong leadership team and cross-system relationships with government, nonprofits, universities, food and farm businesses, and community organizations. During her tenure, the Pittsburgh area council achieved significant policy and systems change including the completion of the region's first comprehensive Greater Pittsburgh Food Action Plan; the passage of a robust urban agriculture code in the City of Pittsburgh; the creation of the Pittsburgh Food Justice Fund which will invest $3 million into food infrastructure in communities facing conditions of food apartheid and lack of healthy food access; passage of the Good Food Purchasing policy at the state's second-largest school district, Pittsburgh Public Schools; and successful advocacy for the creation of the PA Farm Bill.
She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and master's degree in Political Science from the City University of New York's Graduate Center. Plummer also holds a certificate of Local & Regional Food Policy Leadership from the Chesapeake Food Policy Leadership Institute of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. A native Pennsylvanian, she was born and raised in the Harrisburg area, lived in Philadelphia, and has called Pittsburgh home for over a decade.